


On Your Image

by Hinganbachuru (Twilight_Joltik)



Category: Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pissed Teenage Shenanigans, Post Jared Best End, Toilet Papering the House of Someone Who Totally Deserves It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8732839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Joltik/pseuds/Hinganbachuru
Summary: Jared hadn’t spoken to his mother in two weeks.That is to say, he had no hand in the plot to toilet paper their house. Doesn't mean he doesn't completely respect and envy whoever did, though.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be from a prompt on Tumblr, but I didn't go exactly where it said. Basic idea's there, but different characters. Still, I like how this turned out a lot, and I hope you enjoy it~!

Jared hadn’t spoken to his mother in two weeks.

 

It felt strange, like a line had been severed that he’d never be able to reconnect, even if he wanted to. Did he want to? Really, he didn’t know.

 

Whatever had happened, he didn’t quite feel like the same person he’d been even on the day of the Tournament. People weren’t looking at him quite as much. The rumors about the drinking had finally quieted, but even though Normal Boots had just won, he felt ignored.

 

Well, not entirely, there was Hana, beautiful, amazing Hana. And there was Satch, and there was PBG, and Paul had started to even be a bit more open with him. The election had gone just fine for him, even with all the whisperings, so maybe he didn’t care anymore, or maybe his repentance had actually meant something.

 

Jared hadn’t spoken to his mother in two weeks, but she was trying to speak to him.

 

His phone blew up one Monday morning during class, and he took one look at the screen and let out a sigh before shoving it in his book bag. It wasn’t until he remembered he was going to ask Caddy something about the meeting that night during lunch that he finally looked at it and forced himself to at least look at her texts, at very least to make the red number it brought go away.

 

Some part of him had been hoping it’d be an apology, no matter how cold it would have been. But rather, it was an angered rant that made no sense to him until he saw the attached photo, at which point he couldn’t help himself, he just had to laugh.

 

It seemed their- no, her yard had been covered in toilet paper. Her angered block of text implied she thought it was his doing, but honestly? He didn’t have the guts. He wished he had the guts.

 

Shaking his head, he resolved not to reply. Just enjoy that little bit of cosmic vengeance. But, there was a bit of a small problem with that  

 

Jared hadn’t spoken about his mother in two weeks.

 

Still only Hana knew what happened there, unless his mother had told some of her friends and that’d gotten around the school. Those rumors, he knew will alone couldn’t keep them down for long, but boy did he look forward to hearing them. “They say Jared got kicked out of his own house, can you believe it?” “His mom probably doesn’t approve of that weirdo he’s dating.” “Nah, she probably just didn’t want an alcoholic of a son running around.”

 

So, that’s why he got a bit confused the longer he thought about the whole toilet paper thing. That sounded like something his friends would do, but they didn’t know about anything like that. He could have seen Paul, Nick, and Josh rallying together for such a scheme, but unless some rumor had reached that paper of theirs, it was unlikely. PBG and Jon might have too, but they didn’t know either. Hell, Hidden Block might do something like that- actually, it might have been them, he wouldn’t put it past them as a bit of an act of revenge for their loss in the tournament. He decided to bring it up in the D&D game that night.

 

Casually, while they were setting up and waiting for Jeff to get there, he just let it slip. “It seems someone toilet papered my house last night.”

 

Silence. He added in a bit more to sound less accusatory. “Whoever it is, I’d love to send them flowers. It was great work.”

 

“Wow, that person must have some balls,” Caddy chuckled. “Isn’t your family like, super duper upper crust or something?”

 

Jared hadn’t wanted to explain anything about his family in the past two weeks.

 

A shrug seemed like a better answer, then.

 

Luke smirked, glancing at the window and adjusting his hat. “Yeah, wonder why, though. Did your mom wear a fur jacket or something and piss off PITA?”

 

“I don’t think so,” Jared offered. His probing was proving... unsuccessful. “Maybe it was just some rebellious teenagers?”

 

“They should’ve invited you,” Ian added. “You would have known all the best places to target.”

 

The idea made Jared smile. Defacing the image his mother loved so much, it sounded like a sweet slice of revenge.

 

“If they do it again,” Jared offered, thinking perhaps this might be taken as a hint that he was onto them. “They really should.”

 

Jared hadn’t thought he’d keep caring about the incident, but it was just too interesting to let go.

 

He brought it up casually at lunch on Wednesday, and while Shane just provided a slow clap, Continue seemed to burst into collective laughter a bit too easily when Jared asked if they’d heard anything about it.

 

“Oh, come on, of course we heard about it,” Josh huffed, as if offended at the notion that something interesting hadn’t reached them first.

 

Nick offered a smile in something of an apology. “We don’t know who did it, but if you find out, please tell us!”

 

“Yeah, that guy must have been awesome!”, PBG blurted out from across the table.

 

Paul shrugged but looked to be biting back another laugh. “Or at least pretty determined.”

 

Jared decided to maybe not worry about it, but damn, he was jealous of whoever it was.

 

He’d probably kill for that kind of bravery, to be able to go behind his mother’s back and tear to pieces that image she loved so damn much. The act had surely been meaningless to whatever punk enacted the plan, but to him, it would have meant the world.

 

Only other person he mentioned it to was Hana- she’d been busy with something with Mai the lunch period he’d told Normal Boots about it. She laughed, but seemed unwilling to let him dwell on the subject.

 

“You shouldn’t worry about her,” she said. “Just be happy someone did something, right?”

 

Hana was right. Hana usually was right, he was learning. God, he loved that about her. She didn’t see it more often than not, but she was positively brilliant.

 

So he tried to let it go.

 

Jared thought he’d let it go.

 

But, he still craved a piece of that revenge. He wanted to be brave, he wanted to be spiteful, he wanted to do something wrong, something reckless and stupid and selfish. The concept was driving him mad.

 

So, when on the following Sunday evening, Ian came to his door, threw a hoodie at him, and told him to meet him at the train station, he wasn’t about to complain. He wasn’t even about to question it.

 

At least, not until Luke and Caddy got in the same compartment as them, wearing hoodies that almost looked to match. Between Ian’s purple one with some mp3 player control symbol on the pockets, Luke’s green one that pretty much made him look like a frog, and Caddy’s black one with dots on the hood, he felt the plain white one he’d been given was a little lacking.

 

After the train stopped moving, Luke opened the bag he’d brought with him to reveal several rolls of toilet paper a can of spray paint, and Jared was pretty sure he laughed more than he had in weeks.

 

“What, you didn’t know that’s what this was?”, Caddy questioned, sounding a little annoyed.

 

Jared most certainly knew what this excursion was from the start.

 

“Well yeah, but-”

 

“But you didn’t think we’d invite you?”, Luke finished, laughing a bit afterwards. “Well, you said you wanted to!”

 

Letting out a small sigh, Jared glanced out the window. “No, it’s just- well, I didn’t think you’d do it again.”

 

Ian shook his head. “We aren’t.”

 

“Come on, don’t make me do this alone!”, Jared countered. He didn’t want to have to face her alone if things went wrong, a possibility that was scaring him more and more the closer he came to actually acting on his fantasies.

 

“Nah, we wouldn’t,” Caddy assured him. “We just weren’t the ones that did it before.”

 

Jared was genuinely surprised by that.

 

Not because there weren’t other possibilities, but because he didn’t think there could be multiple groups of culprits. Groups, because Caddy seemed to have said it in the plural.

 

“Continue?”, he suggested, and Luke nodded.

 

“Well, Mai put it together,” Ian corrected. “Said your mom’d been a real bitch to Hana, said you’d be cool with us getting some good old fashioned petty revenge.”

 

Mai, of course, why hadn’t he thought of her? She was clever enough for it, and Hana was probably the only reason Normal Boots and Hidden Block would work together for such a cause.

 

Well, Hana and him. Jared couldn’t leave himself out of this equation. Ian, Caddy, Luke, Jeff, they were his friends too. They knew things about him he would rather die than tell even Satch.

 

Speaking of Jeff… “Was Jeff busy or something?”

 

“He’s next week’s shift,” Caddy explained.

 

Luke glanced at his phone and under his breath added “him and Mai and Peebs...”

 

“Shifts?”, Jared repeated.

 

“So we’re less likely to get caught,” Ian added.

 

They’d really thought this out, hadn’t they?

 

Jared had, in an odd way, never felt more loved.

 

But he couldn’t just let them keep doing it, right?

 

"I know Mai told you to, but can you maybe not cover my house in toilet paper every week?”, he requested nervously. “We don't even live that close, surely it's not worth it."

 

“At least let PBG have his turn!”, Luke insisted. “He’s been looking forward to it for ages now!”

 

Seemed fair enough. “But after that? You don’t have to do this.”

 

Ian nodded. “Alright. But, I know whatever she did isn’t something you want to talk about. And I just want to let you know, we’re here for you, no matter what.”

 

“Not just us!”, Caddy added hastily. “But, all of us! Everyone in Hidden Block, everyone in Normal Boots! We all care a lot about you, okay?”

 

Jared felt something stinging at his eyes.

 

Raising a hand to brush off the tears, he smiled and gave the nearest person- Caddy, as it so happened- a hug. “I love you guys!”

 

“We love you too, Jar,” Caddy muttered, muffled by the hug.

 

“Just like, don’t tell Jimmy or Wallid about this!”, Luke begged. “They’d be super pissed if they knew we didn’t invite them, and Hana didn’t want more people know than she had to and-”

 

Cutting him off with a “of course not,” Jared released Caddy from his embrace and started looking at the supplies again.

 

“So, what’s the spray paint for?”

 

Jared ended up using it to draw a big X across the window of his old room.

 

His heart pounded like crazy the whole time, but wow, was it a rush. All that kept him from panicking at every small sound he heard was the thought that She’d be mad, that She’d freak out. That was all he needed to keep his cool until the four of them were on the late train back to school.

 

But, once they were on that train, it all came rushing back.

 

“I can’t believe we did that…”, he muttered, feeling numb.

 

Luke’d been laughing giddily since they’d left Her lawn, and he just nodded in agreement. On the other hand, Ian just sort of sighed. “We… we really did it…”

 

“Are we gonna make it before curfew?”, Jared questioned, suddenly worried by the moon hanging in the sky.

 

Caddy offered a complacent shrug. “So? We can sneak in.”

 

That’s what they ended up doing, but he really, truly didn’t care. He went straight to bed with the stupidest grin on his face, barely caring that his homework was still only half completed.

 

Jared hadn’t spoken to his mother in three weeks, but when she woke him up with one- two- no, three phonecalls, he decided to go ahead and give her a few words.

 

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

 

He hung up before she could get in a single word and didn’t hear from her the next week, despite PBG and Mai giggling at lunch about their exploits.

  



End file.
